sword_logic | red vs blue: motivational chorus arc rewatch (Reply)

the title of this post is probably slightly in error because all i want to talk about is S13. firstly, just to get it out there: S13 is probably the single best season of this show. it gives S6 a serious run for its money in my books. 13 is such a phenomenal season all around, and honestly the only major blemishes on its record, for me, are more personal than objective.

from what i remember (ymmv as far as fandom interactions go), miles got a lot of grief/doubt as a writer when he took over as lead writer but honestly, i think he's the best writer this show has had so far. not perfect by any means (who is?), but he listened, he tried, and he managed to:

breathe life into a completely fresh setting in 3 (!) seasons
show carolina with a truly wonderful amount of growth
make kimball a competent, very human leader
give tucker one of the single best character arcs on the show
let wash take a back seat without feeling ignored/belittled
highlight the reds and blues as genuine badasses without taking away what makes them so charming

my main issues with S13 in particular were the weird o'malley thing and..... maine's armor. i wrote a post about it on tungle when the season aired and i still feel Bad about it, but with more distance, i think i can see what they were going for: tucker getting what felix wanted. as a concept, that resonates more with me now, but it still hurts and feels bad/weird to put tucker in that suit of armor.

all of that aside, though, i enjoyed the chorus trilogy so much more when i didn't go into it with the intention to nitpick and analyze, and i'm sure time/distance/etc. also helped. 13 in particular was so damn enjoyable because that's when they started really fucking nailing the animation; everything looks quick and fluid and realistic in a way the 9 through 12 hadn't quite managed to do yet, and it's so much fun to watch. it's a really rewarding season to Me, A Viewer, and that last big wash/lina/felix/locus fight scene, that last fight scene, there is absolutely no other fight or scene in the whole series that's more genuinely god damn delightful.

i enjoyed locus's character arc a lot more on this watchthrough as well, and i think that also has something to do with more time and distance away from the season's debut and getting wrapped up in the minutiae. it's hard not to be when something is airing episodically, and getting to step back and look at things more broadly definitely benefits this season, imo. i can't quite put my finger on why locus clicked for me a lot more this time around, but the locus/wash parallels didn't seem as bizarre as they had when 12 was airing, and felix's manipulation of locus (especially near the end) seemed much more glaring - though probably because i was also paying a little more attention to it, as (for better or worse) two NPCs in the campaign i'm DMing were compared to the felix and locus so i had it on my mind.

the best part of this rewatch was realizing, partway through, that i was thinking about canon in terms of "oh, what an interesting departure from S11 au" rather than, like, the other way around. i picked up a few worldbuilding things i missed and/or forgot that i added to my notes, and i also made a few adjustments to some scenes that i think are a much better choice for the fic. chorus and its spiderwebby minefield of a political situation is such an interesting setting and it's honestly definitely been an inspiration for my dnd campaign (or, at least, the way i've reconstructed it for S11 au is). and it has been cool to take another look at how different my reimagining/prediction of events ended up being from how the chorus arc actually ended. rewatching while keeping S11 au in mind was definitely a lot of me thinking "oh man, i really did plan this out before S12 aired, huh" over and over. i thought the whole mercs thing was going to pan out to be a lot bigger than it was in 12/13, but you know what? it works for my fic, and and i'm not gonna bother changing it as i move forward.

i'm so happy with and proud of what i've got written so far, so now all i need is for the end of this part to not keep jumping out of my grasp every time i think i'm getting close to finishing up. yes, adding an extra scene is great, but also, i want to actually finish some time this decade.

for now: time to actually watch the three felix/locus episodes from S14, as i have never watched them before. @ self, godspeed.